


I Will

by MrsCalculation



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Character Death, Established Relationship, Hurt No Comfort, Injury, M/M, OtaYuri Week 2020, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, day 2: alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27186397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsCalculation/pseuds/MrsCalculation
Summary: Their love is quiet and sleepy and slow where their public personas are loud or energetic or bold.But it’s felt so fragile lately.
Relationships: Otabek Altin & Otabek Altin's Family, Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 14
Kudos: 14
Collections: Otayuri Week 2020





	I Will

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags on this one. Check the end notes for more detailed descriptions (contains spoilers).
> 
> A huge thank you to [Taedae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taedae) for helping me out with the early concept of this fic a few months ago!

“You can’t just walk out because you’re unhappy with what I’m saying.”

“I can, and I will. Watch.”

“Beka,” Yuri says, suppressing a sigh. He knows it’ll do Otabek’s mood no favors, but it’s hard to hold in when Otabek’s being so childish. “Come on. You know it doesn’t do any good in the long run. How many times have you seen me slam the door on someone, and how many times have you seen that actually make me feel better?”

Otabek doesn’t even pretend not to sigh, which, well, isn’t exactly a new development, but Otabek’s abandonment of even a pretense of diplomacy is still jarring after two years. “I know, Yura. I know. But it isn’t about walking out. I just need a little while to be alone, okay?”

This time, Yuri does sigh. He won’t deny Otabek a moment to catch his breath. “Yeah, okay. Be safe.”

“I will.”

The door closes softly behind him, Otabek’s key to Yuri’s apartment scraping in and turning the lock with a strange sense of finality. It’s not like Yuri couldn’t have gotten up to lock the door himself, but it’s one of those little things Yuri has noticed that Otabek does to prove he’s not mad, to say he still loves Yuri no matter what.

And it’s true that Otabek has gotten worse at saying _I love you_ outright since Gulaisha died, which Yuri finds strange. With every loss he’s experienced, Yuri has become much more forthright with his affection, hiding less and less behind his aggressive persona around those he loves most. Otabek, though… With each different obstacle or tragedy or loss, Otabek had become more and more reserved, until he stopped verbalizing positive feelings entirely, as if not speaking them out loud would make it hurt less if something happened to someone he loved. It makes no sense to Yuri, not to love loudly when he’s seen how quickly life can be cut short, but he supposes he’s always been one extreme or the other through life, while Otabek has always been more reserved with his emotions.

Otabek knows Yuri needs to feel loved, though, knows that Yuri needs that constant reassurance just as much as he does, and their life together has been full quiet _I love you_ s, from Yuri always keeping Otabek’s favorite tea stocked to Otabek locking the door behind him so Yuri doesn’t have to get up. Their love is quiet and sleepy and slow where their public personas are loud or energetic or bold. 

But it’s felt so fragile lately.

Yuri doesn’t question why. It’s been just over two years since Gulaisha died. Last week, on the anniversary of her death, Otabek had sat at the small desk in Yuri’s room all day, hand pressed over his heart, eyes distant and glazed, until Yuri had set a cup of tea down mid-afternoon. The soft _clunk_ of ceramic hitting wood had startled Otabek back into the moment, and he’d met Yuri’s eye painfully slowly.

“She’s still gone,” he’d said, and Yuri had never felt more useless.

Not long after they’d met properly, Otabek had told Yuri all about his twin sister and the running joke in their family that, between them, they carried the entire family’s bad luck. They were constantly ruining their favorite clothes or splattering paint across the floor or getting hurt in ridiculous ways—like when they both tripped into the same public fountain at different times in the same day, or triggered an avalanche of cans of condensed milk at a grocery store that resulted in bruises so bad that Otabek’s coach had him off ice for a week during Juniors. Otabek’s motivation for returning to Almaty was to be closer to family.

“I love them all, I really do,” Otabek had said when Yuri had asked about his other siblings. “But there’s a special place in my heart for Gulaisha. She’s the only other person I know who’s actually started driving with a drink still on the hood of the car. Oh, and the only person I’ve watched be attacked by a lamb at a petting zoo.”

According to Otabek, while he’d fought against his bad luck and gracelessness to become a figure skater, Gulaisha had accepted it with no problem. She thought it was funny, and she’d had no issue getting an education despite her clumsiness. The year after Otabek had made it to the Grand Prix, Gulaisha had been accepted into university.

“She’s off to a university in Germany, so I guess it’s on me to stay here and shoulder the family’s bad luck.”

“There’s gotta be a flight to some competition or something that connects through Germany, right? You’ll be able to visit. Wait. Do you speak German? Does _she_ speak German?”

Otabek had laughed softly, leaving Yuri to fight the warm feeling in his chest with a spoonful of yogurt. “Yeah, we both do, but most of her classes will probably be in English. The immediate family all speaks Kazakh, Russian, and English. Gulaisha, Kymbat, and I all speak French and German, too. I learned French for skating, and they copied me.”

“Wow, so you’re _all_ a bunch of nerds.”

Otabek had laughed again, a little stronger that time, and Yuri had given up on denying himself his feelings.

Yuri sighs at the memory and pushes himself up off the sofa, deciding to mope in his bedroom instead. He collapses onto his bed, burying his face into their mound of pillows and wrapping a blanket over his bare shoulders. Otabek hasn’t laughed that freely in years, and Yuri wishes he could just fix it. Nothing will bring Gulaisha back, he _knows_ that, but he wishes he could reach back and stop it from happening in the first place. Nothing Otabek has accomplished since she died has been worth the price of his pain.

Gulaisha had died a few weeks before Worlds, and Otabek had, understandably, dropped out of the competition. At Otabek’s insistence Yuri had competed anyway, but flew from the competition directly to Almaty. He’d spent nearly a month there, making sure Otabek was actually eating and sleeping and showering, until Otabek finally shooed him away with the promise to take care of himself now that the reality had set in for not only himself, but his entire family. Yuri had reluctantly left with a promise from Otabek’s parents that they’d taken care of him for twenty-two years so far and could manage it for at least twenty-two more.

The next time Yuri saw him, Otabek was sporting a delicate white-ink tattoo and a devastatingly beautiful set of programs.

The tattoo, set just under his heart and spreading across his ribs—under the spot his soul mark will eventually appear—is of a delicate flower with writing in place of the stem. _Gulaisha_ , it reads in Kazakh script that Otabek says is her own signature. It’s far more beautiful than anything Yuri can ever imagine a normal person having written, but Otabek swears his sister was just that talented.

Several times since he’d gotten the tattoo, Yuri had noticed Otabek staring at it in the mirror, just after a shower or before climbing into bed. It wasn’t until recently that Yuri had gotten bold enough to ask about its placement. “She never got one,” Otabek had explained. “She never got her words. She was the brightest, most beautiful soul, but she never found her soulmate. It’s probably better. I can’t imagine how they’d have gone on without her.”

Yuri hadn’t known what to say. His grandfather had had his soulmark as long as Yuri could remember, words from the grandmother Yuri never met forever scripted across his heart, but otherwise, Yuri didn’t know anyone with a soulmark. In general, he’d been lucky enough to live his life without considering soulmates very much at all, and he wished to keep it that way. The idea of not knowing who his soulmate was his whole life was unpleasant, though still better than the finality of carrying those words on his chest. He’d never even considered the possibility of never meeting his soulmate at all, and that new consideration left him more confident than ever in his desire to be the one who goes first.

Yuri had just held Otabek’s hand and rested his head on his shoulder, and that had seemed like enough.

Otabek’s programs that year had been an easier topic to broach. Yuri was familiar with how powerful skating for loss could be, and was incredibly proud when Otabek swept competition after competition with his work. The pieces had beautifully expressed his love for his sister and the strength of his family, and Otabek had never performed so well before. Yuri felt no shame in losing to the art Otabek created.

Of course, they shouldn’t have gotten comfortable, thinking that Otabek could continue his career as planned without any more major tragedies. 

The first anniversary of Gulaisha’s death had fallen directly in the middle of Worlds, the same day as the men’s free skate. Despite, or perhaps because of, his determination to perform in her memory, Otabek hadn’t been able to focus during the warm-up. Before he’d even landed, Yuri knew there was no way Otabek would be competing that evening.

Neither of them realized that the injury would keep him from competition for a full year.

Though he followed doctor’s orders to keep off the ice, Otabek had been at every one of Yuri’s competitions to support him, and has been living in Yuri’s apartment since Euros a few months prior. He’s followed Yuri to practice a few times, talking vaguely of _if he returns_.

Yuri has been content to humor Otabek, knowing him to be the rational one of them who would come to terms with reality on his own. Otabek just needed time to grieve the death of his career, but he would eventually come to the only reasonable conclusion: it was time to declare his retirement officially.

Unfortunately, Yuri had discounted the intensity of Otabek’s stubborn streak.

When Otabek brought it up today, Yuri had thought he was prepared. For the better part of the year he’s been rehearsing the platitudes until they felt genuine: _it’s what’s best for you_ and _you should focus on what you accomplished_ and _no one else is disappointed, so shouldn’t be either._ But when today Otabek had said he didn’t want to be that no-name who retires at 24, Yuri was left speechless.

“I want to go out on a high, Yura,” he’d concluded. “One more good season. This doesn’t control me.”

“ _Otabek_ ,” Yuri finally managed after staring open-mouthed during Otabek’s entire speech, “are you kidding? A few more competitions isn’t worth fucking up your leg for life! You can be a 24-year-old retiree who made the best choice for your health, or a 25-year-old retiree who didn’t and ends up not able to even walk without help. It’s one year! How is one year worth that risk?”

And, of course, that was the wrong thing to say. “You don’t know that, Yuri. And it’s not about the length of time, it’s about what I do with it. I don’t need you to determine what I’m capable of. I can do that on my own.”

Yuri had taken a steadying breath to keep from yelling. “I know you can, Beka, but you also don’t need to do this. You have nothing to prove.”

“Right, I don’t. But you can’t tell me you wouldn’t want to do the same in my situation.”

Yuri had pinched the bridge of his nose, making sure to compose himself before speaking. “You’re right,” he’d said, allowing Otabek a moment to feel victorious before he continues. “But you would try to talk me down from it, and I would let you. I would let you keep me from hurting myself more.”

Which had led to Otabek walking out, an increasingly common occurrence these days.

Yuri replays the fight in his mind ad nauseum, tossing around in bed, searching for the best thing to say when Otabek returns. There’s an intense anxiety churning in his gut at the thought of Otabek pushing too hard and hurting himself again, and Yuri groans into his pillow. His incompetence at helping Otabek is always stressful and exhausting.

Yuri doesn’t realize he’s drifted off until he’s woken by his phone buzzing incessantly. He can’t remember setting his alarm, but he fumbles around until he finds his phone to turn it off. He’s drained from the fight, and his chest burns at the thought of Otabek. He may snooze the alarm to give him a few minutes to collect his thoughts.

When he finally gets his phone, though, it’s not an alarm at all, but a call from an unknown local number.

“Is this Yuri Plisetsky?” Yuri has time to let out a quick _yes_ before the caller continues, “I’m calling from Medem International Hospital regarding Otabek Altin. You’re listed as his emergency contact.”

Yuri jerks upright, the sluggishness he felt moments before washed away with the heat of adrenaline. “Yes, I am. What’s going on? Is he okay?”

All Yuri comprehends of the rest of the call is _automobile accident_ and _blood loss_ and _emergency surgery_. “I’m on my way,” he chokes out, then hangs up to call Viktor.

“I need you to take me to Medem,” he says as soon as the line connects. He’s out of bed, rummaging through the clothes on the floor to find a shirt.

“Are you okay?” Viktor says, clearly panicked at the demand.

“Otabek,” Yuri says as he puts the call on speaker. His chest burns with panic as he says, “they just called. He was in an accident.”

“Oh, Yurochka,” Viktor says just as Yuri turns to set the phone on the nightstand. He finds a black hoodie, one of Otabek’s favorites, and turns to the mirror to pull it on, pausing when he catches a glimpse of a weird smudge on his skin. “I’ll be outside in ten.”

Yuri doesn’t answer, instead looking at the black smudge across his chest that he swears wasn’t there before he fell asleep. He rubs at it, and it’s warm under his fingers, but it doesn’t go away. He approaches the mirror to get a better look.

“Yura? Yura, are you there?”

Yuri’s knees give out from under him. He faintly registers Viktor’s continued _Yura_ s from the phone but can’t bring himself to respond. He sits on the floor, tracing the words over his skin with his index finger, replaying the fight again one more time.

There, over his heart in Otabek’s slanted, soft handwriting, are two words.

_I will._

**Author's Note:**

> Content Warning/Description:  
> Last words soulmate AU where the last thing you hear your soulmate say appears on your heart after you die, or the last thing your soulmate says to you before they die appears on your heart when they die. If you die without meeting your soulmate, you never get words over your heart.  
> In this fic, Otabek has a twin sister who dies before she meets her soulmate. Otabek dies in an accident, which Yuri finds out by getting his soulmark.
> 
> If you made it this far, thank you for reading and I’m sorry if I hurt you!
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://mrscalculation.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/MrsCalculation) @MrsCalculation!


End file.
